Been wondering about building some stuff this winter and wondering if we could get that ROK build going or at least scratch a date.
I just signed up for the 90 bulldog build on kitebuilder and crazy excited.
Semester ends the second week in Dec and would like to do a build between (late Dec - early Jan)

My grandson had a nylon playhouse - red, blue & yellow. It was going in the trash, so I grabbed it to make a piece of line laundry. It's not wind proof nor very thick, but it survived a couple of years of kid abuse, so maybe it'll be okay. Decided to make a caterpillar ... 78 pieces cut out with little scrap left over. Hoping a single running stitch will be enough to keep it together, 'cuz that's a lot of piecing together for anything else.

Cheers,
Tom

Last edited by Jeepster on Thu, Nov 13 2008, 05:59 PM, edited 1 time in total.

OK, early January is obviously not happening.I propose Saturday, February the 7th.--if that date works for everyone, especially Mike S.

Mike is in Cabery, IL and owns a building that would give us lots of room. It's heated, has indoor plumbing , and plenty of power available for multiple sewing machines.I'll post a map and directions later.

The way I envision it right now, is that we would make a basic Rok like the ones we've used at festivals for Rok battles. Here's a photo from a battle in progress; one of the kites is being cut out of the sky.

The kites are in the 3-4-5 style, meaning that they are 5 feet tall, 4 feet wide, and the height of the center rectangle (red, green or blue on these kites) is 3 feet tall.

That photo is from 2005 and these kites are still flying and with the same spars. The spars are pultruded carbon in one piece. Two 4 foot and 1 five foot rod.

Once we've cut and sewn the skin, there are a few ways to finish the kite. Pockets, velcro, shoelaces vs o-rings vs cable-ties, etc. Tensioning the bow can be done a few different ways too. Bring any roks you already own, and we can compare the different methods that different people use. Mike S has several good examples.

This wont be like other classes you may have taken. I don't plan on pre-cutting the pieces because I want to discuss cutting (hot vs cold) for newbies. And there will be input and discussion of different techniques. All skill levels are welcome. Absolute beginners will leave with a kite they've made, and advanced sewers will get a chance to share techniques and hopefully learn new ones.

Applique can be done later on your own.

I think it would be great to have IKE rok battling demonstrations at festivals, all using the same size kite. This would be a great start for the IKE Rok team (t-shirts anyone?)

So, if this date is good for people, we'll need a head count and color choices.
I'll order material and spars and have it all shipped to Mike S.'s house.
You can reimburse me for the cost of the materials on kite building day.

Yup, I'll order everything.
I'll also bring a big old sheet of glass and a couple cutting mats, hot cutter (wood burner).

We'll probably do a combination of hot cutting and cold cutting. It's a class to learn/experiment after all.

What to bring will depend somewhat on how many people we have.
You'll want to bring whatever you usually use to sew: a sewing machine, thread, seam ripper.
There will probably be other tools available but you may want to bring any of the following:
hot cutter, roller cutter, razor blade, straight edge, pencil, quilting ruler, blue masking tape, glue stick, double-sided tape...

I'll bring my sewing machine and I don't plan on sewing, so it's available if someone doesn't have one.

We may want to order some line too. This is what we've used at the festivals for battles:
http://gwtw-kites.com/showproduct.asp?P ... Hoop+SpoolAfter all, if it's good enough for Jim Cosca (He was a Premier rep when he won the championship, so of course he was using Premier line)
We'll see if Dave Zavell can get the Premier line for us. It's a nice braided line

I am in. Not sure if I will need the spars or material. I have had it on hold since last time there was talk of a rok class. I will look to see what colors of rsn is here. I may elect to get some different color then what I have. Will need black for sure though.

Cool.
The white area is 4' wide and 3' tall.
So figure what size your circle will be (2'?).

Then look around your house for something around that size you can use as a pattern to hot cut around. I've used a metal trash can lid for example. Otherwise, we'll draw it with a compass or piece of string, or....
I'll bring some cardboard you can use to make a template from too.

That's a nice simple applique that you'll be able to do at the workshop.